What Non-New Films Have You Seen? (2020 Edition)

[Inspector Norse]

More films!

Airplane! - somehow made it to the age of 35 without ever seeing this, though I have seen the Naked Guns and Top Secret! (which I love). It was enjoyable but not the delirious laff riot I was perhaps expecting; maybe too many of the gags are too familiar now to really hit at source. Also, what the fuck was Johnny supposed to be?

Szindbád - randy old toff in fin de siècle Hungary dreams of lost loves and affairs. Lots of sensuous imagery, very saturated colours in that early '70s way. Meandering, regretful and reflective almost to the point of losing interest and then about an hour in there's an absolutely fantastic scene in an inn. Some quite beautiful scenes although the overall impression is nearly spoiled by Szindbad's finally carking it in a church to a montage of hilariously crappy religious iconography. Still very much worth a watch if you like that dreamlike imagistic '70s style (Parajanov etc).

[greenman]

Wenders Kings of the Road, vague memories of having seen some of it before essentially first time. Certainly familiar ground in some ways to Paris Texas although more in the way of quirkiness which I think finds a very nice level stopping it from becoming too po faced/self important dispite spending 3 hours touring declining west German towns in monochrome. Absolutely loved the two main themes, another example of ones that are used a hell of a lot but never IMHO wear out their welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-px60iPueEk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEs2Ntoi6Iw

[phantom_power]

Fat City (1970) - Another great 70s film with morally ambiguous characters and no easy moralising or answer. It also has the best depictions of drunks I can remember on film. Surprised to see it was directed by John Huston

Booksmart (2019) - I loved this film. Really funny and sweet and actually showing these sort of films from a female perspective (written and directed by lady women). I liked that the characters you thought would be antagonists at the start turn out to be more complicated than that. In that respect, and in the "one crazy night" concept it reminded me a lot of Dazed and Confused, which is one of my favourite films. I like how it had empathy for characters that started off as one-note stereotypes, and the central relationship is so strong and nice that the ending felt triumphant

[Urinal Cake]

Election- I finally saw this after the Tracy Flick comparisons with Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and the political class in general. It's a lot more nuanced than people give it credit for.  Tracy is a somewhat sympathetic character all-in-all.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Last night I saw

The Plagarists - Some couple get stranded and stay at a nice man's house who turns out to be a an acquaintance of their friend. He comes out with some monologue which touched the woman, but months later she finds he's lifted it from a book and feels really creeped out about it. The bloke is a bit of an edgy bellend and also a bit like Jerry Seinfeld, it's quite meta and shot on 4:3 video, and there's a bit with a Sony BVW-200 that he's talking about the great simplicity of it, so I suspect it might've been shot on one of them. The people in it were quite pretentious, but I think it was kind of self-aware. Quite enjoyed it as a daft indie film.

The Unbelievable Truth - A mechanic returns from prison and finds there's a lot of chinese whispers about what he went in for. This is troma level acting in parts and it's all really daft. There's a nihilist girl in it talking about pointlessness who becomes a lingerie/nude model to spite her money obsessed dad who wants her to go to college but won't let her study literature. Worth a watch. It's on Prime.

[peanutbutter]

The Unbelievable Truth - A mechanic returns from prison and finds there's a lot of chinese whispers about what he went in for. This is troma level acting in parts and it's all really daft. There's a nihilist girl in it talking about pointlessness who becomes a lingerie/nude model to spite her money obsessed dad who wants her to go to college but won't let her study literature. Worth a watch. It's on Prime.

First Hal Hartley you saw? I'd recommend Trust if it is

Fat City (1970) - Another great 70s film with morally ambiguous characters and no easy moralising or answer. It also has the best depictions of drunks I can remember on film. Surprised to see it was directed by John Huston

I remember thinking this at the time myself but I think it just showcases how much faith he had in his cinematographers, the film (at least now, 50 years removed) is as much Conrad L Hall's as it is Huston's imo.

[Sebastian Cobb]

First Hal Hartley you saw? I'd recommend Trust if it is
I remember thinking this at the time myself but I think it just showcases how much faith he had in his cinematographers, the film (at least now, 50 years removed) is as much Conrad L Hall's as it is Huston's imo.

Yeah probably, I'll give it a look, ta!

I came upon it by algorithms after seeing Kelly Reichardt's Rivers of Grass and looking for more of her writing/directing stuff; she's got a small role in this.

[phantom_power]

Last night I saw

The Plagarists - Some couple get stranded and stay at a nice man's house who turns out to be a an acquaintance of their friend. He comes out with some monologue which touched the woman, but months later she finds he's lifted it from a book and feels really creeped out about it. The bloke is a bit of an edgy bellend and also a bit like Jerry Seinfeld, it's quite meta and shot on 4:3 video, and there's a bit with a Sony BVW-200 that he's talking about the great simplicity of it, so I suspect it might've been shot on one of them. The people in it were quite pretentious, but I think it was kind of self-aware. Quite enjoyed it as a daft indie film.

The Unbelievable Truth - A mechanic returns from prison and finds there's a lot of chinese whispers about what he went in for. This is troma level acting in parts and it's all really daft. There's a nihilist girl in it talking about pointlessness who becomes a lingerie/nude model to spite her money obsessed dad who wants her to go to college but won't let her study literature. Worth a watch. It's on Prime.

The acting is stilted but deliberately so. It is Hartley's style. They are good actors acting in a certain way, not bad actors failing to act normally

[Small Man Big Horse]

The acting is stilted but deliberately so. It is Hartley's style. They are good actors acting in a certain way, not bad actors failing to act normally

Absolutely, and it's something I love about his work. I'd also recommend Amateur which is the most accessible of his movies, and a lot of fun too.

House On Haunted Hill (1999) - A very, very camp and silly affair that's pretty fun to watch as a bunch of people spend a night in a haunted house / ex mental asylum and if they survive they'll earn a million dollars. Geoffrey Rush hams it up delightfully, Peter Gallagher's eyebrows as as excellent as always, it has a nicely surreal aspect to it at times, and the blood and gore is often pleasingly ridiculous. 6.5/10

[Sebastian Cobb]

First Hal Hartley you saw? I'd recommend Trust if it is
I remember thinking this at the time myself but I think it just showcases how much faith he had in his cinematographers, the film (at least now, 50 years removed) is as much Conrad L Hall's as it is Huston's imo.

This was wonderful, thanks for the recommendation.

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Shaggy Dog (1959) - A Disney live action affair where a kid finds a mysterious bit of jewellery which causes him to shapeshift in to a dog, at first it's just a daft "Human / Animal Swap" kind of movie but the second half has a plotline involving spies stealing important technology from the local missile factory which adds a bit more excitement to it all. A film full of charm, sure it's silly but who cares when the ride is this much fun. 7.5/10.

[phantom_power]

This was wonderful, thanks for the recommendation.

Now watch the next 3 or 4 Hartley films. They are equally great. I think he goes off the boil a bit after that but need to (re)watch at some point

[Sebastian Cobb]

Now watch the next 3 or 4 Hartley films. They are equally great. I think he goes off the boil a bit after that but need to (re)watch at some point

I've already got Amateur downloaded, will stick that on shortly I think.

[Dex Sawash]

The Shaggy Dog (1959) - A Disney live action affair where a kid finds a mysterious bit of jewellery which causes him to shapeshift in to a dog, at first it's just a daft "Human / Animal Swap" kind of movie but the second half has a plotline involving spies stealing important technology from the local missile factory which adds a bit more excitement to it all. A film full of charm, sure it's silly but who cares when the ride is this much fun. 7.5/10.

The Shaggy DA (1976) was timed perfectly with the rise of ten year olds saying DA instead of dumbass and many of them also having long hair. Don't think I've seen the film though.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Now watch the next 3 or 4 Hartley films. They are equally great. I think he goes off the boil a bit after that but need to (re)watch at some point

He definitely becomes quite inconsistent after Henry Fool, but I'm a huge fan of the other two films in the trilogy.

The Shaggy DA (1976) was timed perfectly with the rise of ten year olds saying DA instead of dumbass and many of them also having long hair. Don't think I've seen the film though.

I've seen ten minutes of it so far and plan to watch the rest over the next couple of days.

[chveik]

The Shaggy DA (1976) was timed perfectly with the rise of ten year olds saying DA instead of dumbass and many of them also having long hair. Don't think I've seen the film though.

[grassbath]

Twentynine Palms (2003).

An interesting film, if you have the patience to make it to the last fifteen minutes where it becomes interesting, but it's also peculiarly mean-spirited and I don't know quite how to feel about it. It punishes the viewer, confining them for an extremely long time with two self-absorbed, uncommunicative assholes, and then does an about-face and punishes the assholes. Thoroughly. All 'asshole punishment' puns are fully intended.

It does manage to capture realistically some of the selfish passion and ambient hostility of a bad relationship put in close confines by travel, but the intentional emptiness of the setting and the continual spinning of wheels come off ultimately as negatives. A few heavy-handed metaphors about masculinity or the lack thereof (apes, shaved heads, big cars, loud cumming) aren't quite enough to fill all that empty space. I think Dumont has a brain where his heart should be.

[Small Man Big Horse]

And on that note: The Shaggy DA (1976) - Not as good sequel to the much loved Disney 1959 The Shaggy Dog which suffers from the now grown up Wilby sometimes transforming in to a dog, but it tends to be for not that long, while it follows Tim Conway's Ice Cream Van Man around for way too many scenes. There are some fantastic highlights - in one scene the dog punches out a dodgy criminal type and then slides down a rope from a second floor office, and it ups it's game for the final 40 minutes when Wilby's a dog almost the whole time, but it's definitely lacking in the charm of the first movie. 5.7/10

[Small Man Big Horse]

Amateur (1994) - I hadn't watched this in about twenty five years so was intrigued as to whether or not I'd still enjoy it, and the short version is that I mostly liked it even more than I originally did, the first half is gorgeously stylish fun and I miss the playful Hartley that used to exist back then (and American Indie cinema being so enjoyable in general too). The second half is a little more uneven, and not quite as funny, but I did like the questions it throws up about identity and the nature of character, and still enjoyed it an awful lot. 7.9/10

[greenman]

In keeping with the upbeat mood of the times the UHD/4K version of The Deer Hunter, first time in probably 15 years and it did actually rise in my estimation considerably given that I'd been more of an Apoc Now/Full Metal Jacket man previously. I spose the Russian roulette stuff does seem a bit fantastical, especially given how much that aspect of the film has been referenced down the years but it doesn't feel dramatically out of place for me and all the landscape work is very nice even if obviously not in the rust belt. Another very good use of UHD by Studio Channel(who seem by far the best 4K/UHD label) as well, especially in terms of HDR, not pushing contrast/colouirs to extremes but showing a lot more detail in the darker scenes allowing you to see whats going on without jacking up the TV brightness.

[Sebastian Cobb]

     last night I saw Carnage.

Set in a single apartment as two couples (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz / Jodie Foster and John C Reilly) have met to agree what to do after one of their other kids hit the other kid with a stick. It's like a modern-day Abigail's Party, the couples are all civil at first then they end up at both the opposing couple and their partners throats. Lots of passive-aggressive and actual aggressive needling, Waltz especially is good at very calm needling, Reilly plays a nice Wally, Foster is excellent at a slightly neurotic woman and Winslet is like some power executive type.

[greenman]

Finally got around to watching Gilliam's The Fisher King, avoided it for years thinking it would be a rather bland to order film with took much kook to it but whilst its somewhat more conventional and Williams is full force I have to say I thought it was excellent. The more targeted Gilliams visuals with the red knight or the grand central dancing have an impact and Bridge's playing an arsehole works surprising well too.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Watched Snatch on St. Patrick's Day. One of my dad's favourites. Laaavely blend of violence and comedy.

[Inspector Norse]

A Quiet Place which had a nice concept and was well-directed but we're supposed to believe that this family has survived 471 days in a world where making any sound means instant death yet on day 472 they suddenly start KNOCKING OVER THE LANTERN AND SETTING THE HOUSE ON FIRE and TREADING ON THE LOOSE NAIL EVERY BLOODY TIME THEY GO UP AND DOWN THE STAIRS and JUST RANDOMLY BUMPING INTO SOME GURNING SUICIDAL OLD COOT IN THE WOODS because of course the woods in this post-apocalyptic world are full of gurning suicidal old coots aren't they and FALLING THROUGH THE ROOF OF THE SILO and HAVING A FUCKING BABY WHO GETS FUCKING PREGNANT IN A WORLD FULL OF MONSTERS WHO EAT ANY NOISES?

All this on ONE DAY HOW THE FUCK HAVE THEY SURVIVED 18 MONTHS YOU STUPID FILM

And how did they know the due date for the baby IN THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE

Also the monsters can hear you slip on the steps from a mile away but they can't hear the baby crying from a few centimetres away or its mother banging on the shower window and come to think of it how the fuck did the baby stay so calm while a massive monster was slavering everywhere and smashing TVs and shotguns were blasting?

Seriously one of the stupidest films I've ever seen, made worse by taking itself so seriously and getting so many glowing reviews.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Hal Hartley's Simple Men. Absolutely fantastic a new favourite.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Hal Hartley's Simple Men. Absolutely fantastic a new favourite.

Glad you enjoyed it, I loved it when I saw it at the cinema (because yes, I am depressingly old) and plan to rewatch it again this week as I'm in a Hartley / American indie mood at the moment. On that front:

Hedwig And The Angry Inch (2001) - Another film I hadn't watched in way too long, it'an all kind of lovely musical about the life of a transgender East German singer, and how after having a relationship with a guy she's not given credit for the album that she co-wrote and which makes him big. The songs are stunning, the acting superb, the script is packed with a ridiculous amount of sharp lines, and it's gloriously enjoyable bundle of fun in general. 8.1/10

[Enrico Palazzo]

Southern Comfort (1981). Earlyish Walter Hill film about a team of National Guards, armed with empty rounds, being stalked by locals in a Louisiana swamp.

It's one of his better films and the finale is pretty mesmerising. I do enjoy watching a cast of actors who never quite made it into the big leagues. Fred Ward, Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine, Peter Coyote, together at last.

[Artie Fufkin]

A Dark Song, 2016

Woman hires occultist to carry out ritual.

Wow! A friend recommended me watching this at the time. I finally watched it on Saturday. What a cool little film. Steve Oram is brilliant in it. So matter of fact.
Some genuinely creepy moments in it, and a pretty good ending, I thought.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Southern Comfort (1981). Earlyish Walter Hill film about a team of National Guards, armed with empty rounds, being stalked by locals in a Louisiana swamp.

It's one of his better films and the finale is pretty mesmerising. I do enjoy watching a cast of actors who never quite made it into the big leagues. Fred Ward, Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine, Peter Coyote, together at last.

Quality film, backed by a quality Ry Cooder soundtrack. The bit where the Cajun tells them they better 'haul ass' is great.

[Custard]

The Mountain Between Us (2017)

Kate Winslet and Idris Elba get stuck up a snowy mountain together, following a plane crash

I think the main issue is that they have little to no chemistry together. Another issue is it's so dreary and predictable

Diego Maradona (2019)

This was very good, but I wish they'd spent a bit more time on certain periods of his career. It felt a bit rushed

The Perfect Host (2010)

Niles from Frasier chews the scenery, all the scenery as a mentally ill, sadistic party host. This gave me several belly laffs. Good stuff